A public forum will be hosted by the United States Patent and Trademark Office on the one year anniversary of the First Inventor To File provision.

First to file changed the law for inventors in the United States meaning that the first inventor to file for a patent will own the rights to the product, not the first to come up with the idea and prove it.

This measure makes it imperative that all inventors protect their product with some form of a patent before they begin any process of showing to individuals or companies. The forum will be held Monday, March 17, 2014, at the USPTO headquarters, Madison Auditorium, in Alexandria, Virginia from 12:30 to 5 pm ET.

Here is some information from the USPTO website:

“The forum is intended to bring stakeholders together with USPTO subject matter experts to discuss the FITF provisions.It will begin with a thirty-minute informal meet-and-greet session, allowing participants to chat with the experts, followed by an informational program covering the following topics:”

.Review of FITF filings made to date

.Explanation of whether/when an application will be examined under

the FITF statutory framework

.Overview of the FITF statutory framework and tips on responding to

prior art rejections

.Tour of the AIA (FITF) website

.Q&A panel discussion

If you or anyone you know has an invention idea and needs help protecting it, please contact us at New Product Consulting.

New Product Consulting

New Product Consulting is the consulting, research, design and development arm of a group of independent professionals that help product developers, inventors and entrepreneurs in the pursuit of their new product or start up goals. More...

Contact

Disclaimer: New Product Consulting is NOT an invention promotion company and offers NO promotional services for the ideas we help research, design and develop. New Product Consulting offers services focused in the areas of research & development, product design, engineering, prototyping and graphic design. We are strictly a product development and graphic design firm. Any clients wishing to connect with an independent marketing firm that can assist with marketing we can refer you to one of the independent marketing and licensing professionals in our network.